We have been told that Obama does not change his mind. If he once believed something, he believes it today. (See Uncommon Knowledge starting at 20:40) He believes in global warming and he believes he can save the country from its ravages. Hence the Big EPA attack announced today on “carbon pollution.” Misinformation rules.

Obama could not get the Democrats’ cap-and-trade scheme through Congress, so he’s attempting to do an end run by turning the whole thing over to the EPA, and embarking on some very uncharted legal waters by so doing. It is far from obvious that the Obama administration has any legal authority for this, aside from the faulty internal logic of the program itself. Obama supposedly thinks we will set a good example for China, who will then follow in cutting back on emissions. Coal does not care where it is burned. Reducing demand here just makes it less expensive abroad, and they can use more of it.

The notion that “global warming” is caused by an increase in CO² in the atmosphere arose because they saw global temperatures going up and CO² increasing and assumed the latter was causing the former. Turned out that the increases in temperature were faulty because so many of the monitoring stations were placed in the middle of acres of concrete reflecting heat, or next to air-conditioner exhausts, so the readings reflected a much higher temperature than was accurate. Now the sun has gone quiet (no sunspots) and there has been no increase in temperature for 17 years and 9 months, but the CO² in the atmosphere keeps right on increasing. Ooops!

“Carbon pollution is ‘soot,’ which is not a problem. The EPA’s own data shows that it is well below EPA stated standards, and has declined by 50% since 1999. We are carbon life forms. Carbon is one of the building blocks of life—if you omitted carbon from the earth, you would omit life. You exhale carbon dioxide which is not a pollutant. And 97% of scientists do NOT agree about global warming. Hurricanes are not caused by climate change. Tornadoes, floods and hurricanes are weather, not climate change nor global warming.

The president does not learn from the experience of others. Countries in Europe went for green jobs, solar arrays and wind farms in a big way, and practically destroyed their nations in the process. Spain found that their economy lost 2½ jobs in the regular economy for every green job, due to the higher cost of energy. Mr. Obama has been warned that such an attempt to install cap-and-trade by restricting coal-fired power plants would create havoc throughout the economy with a climbing cost of power, a quarter of a million jobs a year lost due to the higher cost of energy— which means the higher cost of everything. He denies it.

EPA director Gina McCarthy, who apparently flunked high school biology, announced a draft rule seeking a 30% reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions by 2030 from existing power plants based on emission levels from 2005. This agency is ruling that the states must implement the rules and submit their compliance plans by June 2016. The only way a 30% reduction would be possible is by upgrading all combustion units, and the ultimate cost of the upgrades would make coal noncompetitive. The EPA’s own model estimates that its new policies would prevent a grand total of 0.018% in warming by 2100. The EPA’s inspector general says the agency may rely on faulty data.

Of course this may not be about global warming at all, but simply another tax—a very large one, used to underwrite favors for Democratic interest groups and creating corporate subsidies for politically connected businesses who have financial positions in so-called clean-energy technologies.

The vigor and innovation of the American economy has long depended on cheap, reliable power. So-called clean ‘renewable’ energy is only produced with fossil fuels, for both wind and solar require 24/7 backup from conventional power plants. The wind is highly intermittent, and power is only produced when the wind blows steadily at the right speed. Solar energy is only produced when the sun shines, and it sinks beneath the horizon every night, and clouds block the sun. Wind turbines are made from carbon.